


We Defy Augury

by D20Owlbear



Series: We Defy Augury [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), BAMF Aziraphale, Comforting Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Damsel in Distress Crowley, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Intimacy, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Other, Rated G for Angel Fighting, They Get There In The End, aziraphale is an idiot, crowley is an idiot, intimacy porn, miscommunications, moron4moron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:41:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21764698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/D20Owlbear/pseuds/D20Owlbear
Summary: Aziraphale is maudlin after the Flopocalypse. Things haven’t really seemed to change even though it felt like itshould have. Was he right to fret? Crowley had become even more secretive and suddenly disappeared from his life! Did that mean something? Of course it did, butwhatwas the question…Aziraphale drinks some, Crowley pops in then leaves just as quickly, so Aziraphale follows him and finds something out, and is pleased to be the one doing the saving this time.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: We Defy Augury [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1568623
Comments: 35
Kudos: 199
Collections: Good Omens Holiday Swap 2019





	We Defy Augury

**Author's Note:**

> A gift for the Good Omens Holiday Swap 2019 for @i-swear-this-is-my-last-rename!
> 
> Prompt(s)  
> They misunderstood each other, leading to jealousy and further miscommunication, leading to the one party getting hurt and the other rushing in to save them BAMF style, and then some lovely dovey scene for comfort make it as angst as possible if you want, can you also make it like Principality is higher than archangels and Aziraphale being guardian of the eastern gate happening FOR A REASON AND THAT IS HE IS STRONG AF

Aziraphale was fretting. This wasn’t out of the ordinary, of course, Aziraphale was constantly fretting. Usually about little things like keeping humans from purchasing his books or choosing between dining establishments or making sure his taxes were in order. The Larger Things that were more the proper dominion of an angel, he rarely fretted about. [1]

And therein _lie the rub_ . Crowley was a creature that could easily fall on either list. To fret or not to fret, that is the question. The question indeed. Ought he fuss to himself about things he didn’t know, to sit and suffer the bolts and darts of his dreary misfortune of _not knowing_? Or was he beholden to himself to push it from his mind? Was he meant to oppose this, to arm himself with his books and knowledges, hence to push back at this sea of troubles, his ocean of anxieties?

On one hand, Aziraphale knew Crowley very well; 6,000 years of knowing someone certainly lent itself to familiarity. And so, there was rarely anything Crowley kept hidden from Aziraphale which he might fret about. [2] On the other hand, Aziraphale knew Crowley well enough that he could tell something was being hidden from him. The demon rarely lied, at least to Aziraphale, and certainly not to his face. Not when Aziraphale would _know_.

* * *

[1] This list of Larger Things included, but was not limited to: watching over humanity in general, keeping demons (except for one) out of London, protecting his shop from gangsters and the mob, and reheating his cocoa after it had gone cold because he’d forgotten it while reading.

[2] Aziraphale was certainly inclined to worry about the unknown far more than the known. The known could be planned for, and Aziraphale was nothing if not a protector and guardian, the sort who had been made in Her holy image of the tactician. He, of course, wasn’t all-knowing, but he gave it a fair shake when making his plans.

* * *

He was a cherub, taxonomically, at least. One of the highest orders of angels, on par with Thrones and Archangels, and he retained quite a few of those characteristics and power from when he’d been placed at the Eastern Gate of Eden. There was a _reason_ he’d been tasked there. In part because of his wounded leg [3] and also in part because he was a member of the Circle directly beholden to Her, who spoke with Her and was allowed to bask in Her presence at Her side.

He wasn’t any longer, he’d been demoted. To Principality, specifically, to watch over the Humans directly. 

Removed from Her presence to watch Her creations. Aziraphale honestly wasn’t sure if She knew he would be happier like this or not. There was a place to worship Her in each shady glen and desert oasis, he saw Her glory in every ray of early morning sunshine through dewy spiders’ webs, Her majesty was in the distant stars themselves and the stories Her creations made for them, and Aziraphale found exultation in himself in the laughter of Her people and the keening cries of babes breathing in _life_ for the first time.

But all of that was unimportant, at least currently. Right now he was fretting for a reason. A Crowley-shaped reason. The demon had been skulking about [4] and slipping through doorways behind Aziraphale’s back, leaving conversations with a shifty look and disappearing around corners whenever Aziraphale went to look for him! Rude indeed. He’d fretted, wringing his hands as he did so, to one of the girls who made coffee and tea in the café a few blocks away when they were slow in the afternoon. They rarely minded, ever since he'd dressed down a rude customer a while back.[5] The girl just gave him a sad sort of look, fury visible behind her eyes as she wiped down a table nearby while he spoke, and she scampered behind the counter, whispering furiously with the other one on shift.

* * *

[3] Or, what lined up to be a “leg” when confined into a human-type corporeal form. Angels didn’t have, generally, things like legs so much as they had an overabundance of eyes and souls in the form of wheels and fire and wings and in the shapes of animal heads. Of these, Aziraphale had four heads; one was relatively similar to the face he wore in his human form and the others were an ox, a lioness, and an eagle. They were all rather terrifying, and covered in eyes and fire, but he had three pairs of large wings to cover himself up with, so it was alright. 

[4] Crowley rarely skulked or lurked like other demons did. He preferred to slither or, Heaven forbid, _loom_ about, clogging up dark corners up high and frightening poor, unsuspecting people (and angels!) by suddenly appearing behind them with the sort of magnetic presence that made one feel they really ought to have realized he was so close.

[5] Aziraphale had rather enjoyed the opportunity to forcefully escort the customer from the shop upon seeing him attempt to physically intimidate one of the baristas and he certainly couldn’t have stood there and done nothing while the girls who made his hot cocoa and tea so well were being _influenced_ in such an unsavory way via threatening body language. They conspired together for some time and, just as Aziraphale was preparing to leave, the girls came up to him, arms akimbo, and demanded to be kept in the loop.

* * *

“If your boy won’t treat you right, let us know. We’ll set him straight!” The older of the two, Jerica, frowned, her eyes narrowed at the angel. Aziraphale smiled and placed a hand over his heart, touched.

“Thank you, my dear, but truly, that will not be necessary.” 

The younger girl sniffed at Aziraphale’s brush off and grumbled. “Shows what you know. ‘S a tosser and doesn’t deserve you. Knows it too.”

“Bethany!” The older snapped. “That’s _Mr. Fell’s_ decision!” Aziraphale blinked, not sure if they were talking about the same thing anymore.

“My decision? About Crowley?” Aziraphale muttered, half to himself, puzzled.

“Yeah!” Bethany blurt out, “If’n he’s cheatin’ on you, you deserve better!” Aziraphale froze. Cheating? They weren’t together, not like that, not like _humans_ thought of such things so there was nothing to _cheat on_ , surely. But. If there was someone Crowley was trying to hide from him… that would make sense, wouldn’t it? Aziraphale went white, paler than normal as any hint of jolly, rosy-cheeked flush fell from his face and his skin turned ashen in a rather spot-on mimicry of human shock.

“Bethany!” Jerica scolded, snapping Aziraphale out of his thoughts.

“Oh, sorry, my dear girls, but it seems I ought to– well, go.” Aziraphale stammered and rushed out of the café, down a few blocks, and to his shop. Which he locked up tightly and determinedly didn’t change the sign to _Open_. This required something a bit stronger than tea to think about.

* * *

Hours later, Aziraphale had worked his way through half a bottle of rum. He had to cut the top off entirely with a spare athame dagger he blessed to be particularly keen, enough to cut through glass, because the cork was quite firmly sealed shut by the caramelized sugar that had developed while sitting by the small kitchen window since the Golden Age of Piracy. That this had been a gift Crowley had brought him from the Carribean was irrelevant. He’d paired it with some shortbread in the shapes of various creatures and sat in one of his plush reading chairs as he drank, and ate, and thought. He did quite a bit of each, but he did quite a bit more of thinking out of the three. 

Absently, he bit down on the wing of a buttery, sparrow-shaped biscuit. In his drunkenness, he hadn’t noticed the hairline fracture in the tail where he held it. The biscuit dropped from his hand and shattered on the ground, prompting the first tears of the evening to well in his eyes; the final straw the broke the camel’s back, the final drop that overflowed the dam. 

“There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow,” Aziraphale intoned solemnly and fell to his knees as he mourned the lost biscuit, breathing deep to continue. “Not a whit, we defy augury. There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow." He paused dramatically while weeping silently. 

"If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come - the readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves knows, what is't to leave betimes? Let be.”

“Angel?” Crowley called gently from behind, just inside the door that had been locked. _But oh_ , Aziraphale thought, half fondly and half rudely, _When has a lock been enough to stop Crowley?_

The angel quickly dried his eyes with a swipe of his hand before taking another fortifying sip of rum from the cup he’d laid on the ornate coffee table. With the hand not holding the glass he smoothed the front of his shirt and tugged at his waistcoat, embarrassed to be caught in such a state, especially by Crowley.

“Angel,” Crowley repeated, rushing up to Aziraphale, hands hovering near his elbows like he would touch him if only he hadn’t looked so scared. _Scared of what?_ Aziraphale thought wildly, in that hysterical, accusatory way only the drunk can manage. Crowley looked like all the blood in his corporation had suddenly drained from his face, turning his usual pallor ashen. Aziraphale could practically feel the widening of Crowley’s eyes as he looked upon Aziraphale in horror and could just about hear the grinding of teeth through locked jaw as he kept himself from speaking. 

“What’s happened? Did a demon do this?” Crowley asked, voice tight and strained. Aziraphale groaned and sat back in his too-comfortable chair; what he’d give for the unforgiving wood of a pew at the moment, if only to shake him from his stupor. Perhaps then Aziraphale would find the words, or at least wouldn’t feel like he was seconds away from drifting off. The thought that he could simply sober himself up never occurred to him.

“Yes.” It was the truth; after all, he was crying about Crowley. And a biscuit. 

Aziraphale covered his eyes with a hand, shutting out the light and blocking his view of Crowley, who had himself gone quite still and pale in the face. The demon made no further noise and, when Aziraphale let his hand fall from his face and cast his eyes about to find Crowley, the demon was nowhere to be found. Gone, as if he’d never been there in the first place. 

Aziraphale’s face screwed up in something like anguish, though perhaps it was too angry for that. He set his glass of rum on the table hard enough for it to slosh out over his fingers. _That- that demon! Foul fiend!_ Aziraphale ranted in the privacy of his own head, _Rude and cruel tempter!_

He quickly ran out of steam, unable to properly muster anger at Crowley. Of course he was avoiding Aziraphale, why wouldn’t he be? Soaked in alcohol as he was, Aziraphale was certainly prone to melancholia, especially with how Crowley was so obviously avoiding him. But no more! Aziraphale pulled on his game face, as the Humans called it, and forced his body to sober up before he could think twice about it. He regretted the decision almost immediately; when it left his mouth tasting like cotton and his heart aching. All his courage and resolve fled, just as sure as Crowley had, bound to the alcohol he'd purged from his body. He cast a longing glance at the bottle of rum, once again filled with rich amber liquid, and miracled a new cork to fit into its shortened neck before scurrying off to find where Crowley had disappeared to. He returned moments later to collect the bottle of rum once more before scurrying off again. No sense in leaving it.

Aziraphale started towards Mayfair without pausing to consider that Crowley might be headed elsewhere, and promptly forgot about the ornate athame sheathed in his pocket; where he’d stashed it after using it to cut the top off the glass rum bottle. As he walked, he drank, and after some time found himself drunk again.[6] If Aziraphale had been paying attention, which he hadn't, he would have noticed it had taken nearly an hour for him to arrive at Crowley's flat in Mayfair. What ought to have been a leisurely 20 minute walk from his bookshop to Crowley's flat had deviated and meandered terribly. After a few wrong turns and one detour to St James, he found himself back outside his own bookshop, where he had to begin again. Autopilot was an interesting feature in the corporeal form he was blessed with, though it rarely malfunctioned so thoroughly as it had tonight.

* * *

[6] With all the rum he’d returned to the bottle in his hand when he’d sobered up initially. He drank quite a bit less this go ‘round, but it was still straight rum at 80 proof.

* * *

" _Crow_ ley?” Aziraphale knocked on the door to Crowley’s flat, politely of course. He waited a few moments then knocked again, louder this time to make sure the demon heard him.

He waited a bit longer, taking another drink from the bottle in his hand, and knocked for a final time. When there was still no reply, he slowly started to fret once more. “Crowley?”

A loud thud sounded from within the flat, followed by a louder hiss that quickly turned into a high, keening whine - only to be cut off sharply. That- It sounded like Crowley had been hurt, but there was no way to know without going in. All his worries surged up in his throat, until Aziraphale felt like his anxieties might crawl out from his mouth like a nest of spiders.

Aziraphale pulled himself together and up to his full height; shoulders back, eyes glowing with all the intensity of a world-storm. He was suddenly stone-cold sober, even without the help of a miracle to flush his blood; there was no need to waste one when worry had seized him so terribly in its claws. 

The door creaked open before Aziraphale’s hand and hung limply from its hinges, collapsed as if grieving that it was unable to keep out those who had entered Crowley’s flat before Aziraphale. 

Even the worst of his worries, the ones that left him shaking and unsteady, had not prepared him for the scene before him. He hadn’t expected any retaliation, not yet, not so soon after they’d played their little trick on Heaven and Hell. Perhaps he should have paid more mind to Crowley’s fears. Perhaps they both should have been more wary.

Perhaps he might have stopped-

There were four of them; crowded around Crowley’s body where it lay limp on the floor. His corporation looked like it was barely breathing and his eyelids were not quite closed. Crowley didn’t blink, and he certainly didn’t sleep with his eyelids drooping like that - not unless he’d passed out drunk, or from exhaustion (or some other, more nefarious, reason). Aziraphale had a gut-wrenching feeling that it the method and means had been less than pleasant in this case. 

It was more than a _feeling_ , Aziraphale _knew_ . Because there were four of them, four _angels_ crowded around his- around Crowley; and the demon had never been a fighter, no matter how he might like to bluff. 

“Now, _dear fellows_ ,” Aziraphale rumbled, low in his chest, in a way that made it quite clear they certainly weren’t dear to him, even if they had been fellows at some point. He carefully placed the bottle of rum on the table situated next to the door for collecting keys and junk mail. His angelic presence _bent_ and, in another plane of existence, his eyes opened. All of them. 

Each of his eyes blazed with a cold, holy fire; so bright and hot that the light they emitted burned white and caused the very air to shudder around him, molecules in both the astral and corporeal planes trembling before his rage. The three heads that normally remained hidden behind a pair of his wings were revealed as all four of his pristine white wings unfurled and drew the veil back from his form. He lifted his wings high, and spread them from the leading edge in a threat display not unlike the swans they'd watched so many times in the park. 

It was no god-given sword, but as it was all he had at the moment, the jeweled athame would have to do. And it would do quite well since Aziraphale was so overcome with righteous, avenging fury that the poor athame could hardly have done anything else. At this point, he was so swept up in his blazing ire he could have done some very real damage with naught but a letter opener. The razor edge of the blade already had a drunken blessing of keenness layered on it, and now the tarnished silver heated in Aziraphale’s hands until the outer layer melted away like mercury, puddling beside his steps, to reveal an edge gleaming like anything.

The four Erelim yanked their wings into the corporeal plane, unused to the binary of corporeal and ethereal in the same way Aziraphale was. No angel was accustomed to such binaries like Aziraphale was, nor had they learned to sidestep them and twist them to suit their purposes like Aziraphale could. They were stuck in a state of being either unable to access their full power easily or entirely vulnerable to the damage Aziraphale meant to inflict on their corporeal bodies. It did not matter which choice they made; they had chosen wrong to come here at all, and they would pay for that mistake no matter what they chose from then on. Aziraphale had no intention of letting them leave this place without a firm, guiding hand sending them back to Heaven.

Even as his lion-head roared, and his eagle-head shrieked, and his ox-head snorted, his human-head remained silent and stone-faced. The fury in his eyes reflected the cries of his rage, echoing through the room with every step he took. [7]

* * *

[7] Later the events of this night would be reported by humans as an earthquake with its epicentre in Mayfair, London. Which, in England, caused something of a mass panic and a rolling plague of seasickness that was brought on by the tremors (products of each echoed roar, shriek, bellow, and footstep). The news reported the odd quake, with no understandable cause, and no aftershocks felt outside of London itself, at a 4.5. No buildings collapsed, but the city was certainly shaken. If Aziraphale had still been on Heaven’s side instead of Their Own, they might have praised him at the influx of frightened prayers. Or they might not have.

* * *

Aziraphale drew the athame - which had grown to the length, if not quite the width, of the sword God Herself had given him to guard Eden - up into an aggressive guard position. His muscles were loose in the way only practiced warriors, the kind who were made for one purpose and one purpose only, could manage. Plenty of the other angels might think him soft and weak, but Aziraphale had always been made of sterner stuff. Though the silver of the blade was molten in his hands, it retained its sharpened shape despite the heat. He stopped, standing over Crowley, each foot planted firmly on either side of his demon's fallen form. The eyes of the Erelim - which were many and covering their scrolls and ribbons and vestments and stoles, reminiscent of Chariots and Wheels - watched him warily. 

The eyes watching him _burned._ But, they did not have his righteous fervor. Their fires were stoked with hatred and disgust, rather than love sharpened and hardened to a killing edge. 

They were weaker; Erelim were not made to fight or protect or, God forbid, to avenge. 

Aziraphale was. 

That was simply the nature of these things. 

Aziraphale drew a breath, long and steady, and the hairs on the nape of his neck pricked as one Er’el slipped behind him and moved to attack. He dispatch it on instinct, easy as breathing, or blinking, or anything else he did without any thought at all. A distant part of Aziraphale took note of that. He’d worry about it later. 

For now, the bite of keen-edged blade into the corporation of the angel behind him was all he thought of. It was familiar in a nostalgic, terrible way. As chaos bloomed around Aziraphale, each and every movement of he made was as sharp as the blade he wielded like yet another limb. It was as natural as if he had been born with it in his hand, and he was calmed by a very specific sort of clarity that came only with the knowledge that victory was guaranteed. 

Without moving his feet - truly a hardship when sword fighting - Aziraphale blocked what blows he could as the Erelim descended upon him, widening his stance and ducking as needed to move around them without losing his balance. This still resulted in Aziraphale absorbing quite a few low blows that had been meant to trip him up or to cause him to move away from Crowley - presumably so that they might use the demon as some sort of leverage. Why they had allowed him to stand and protect Crowley the way they had, Aziraphale wasn’t sure. Perhaps they thought they might stand a better chance against him if he was confined to one space and unable to corner them and pick them off one by one, or perhaps they had simply been taken by surprise. If it was the former he could almost give them credit for being smart, if it were the latter (and that was far more likely considering their roles in the Host) then they were unconsciously stupid.

Cursing at himself under his breath, Aziraphale flared his wings and made use of his additional heads, quickly acclimatizing himself to trading blows with all the limbs available to him in this half-corporeal form of his. He’d gotten too used to fighting in the way of Humans over the millennia spent among them, with only two legs and two arms and a single head. 

But he was an Angel of the Lord, deemed worthy to guard Her Garden’s Eastern gate, no matter what the bureaucracy of Heaven thought of him; and he would _not_ let these intruders harm _his_ adversary! Ethereal strength and resilience flooded Aziraphale’s limbs with a thought. His corporeal wings were reminiscent of mute swans; and now he emulated them, swinging four of them as a first line of offense. The club-like strength imbued into his wings was perfect for knocking around foolish Erelim who thought to challenge the Cherub who had been sent to Eden. It mattered not that he had been demoted to Principality, among the lowest of the circles, for the demotion was in name alone. 

The fight was over before it began, and while Aziraphale was somewhat worse for wear, he was preordained to be the victor. _They’d never stood a chance_ , he thought grimly as he dispatched the last of the angels with his molten athame-sword - a ragged, sloppy cut separating the head from the shoulders of the corporation. Not only had he been shaped for the role of protection when he was Created, but Aziraphale had the boon of love to spur him onwards. 

He looked upon the remnants of their earthly corporations, lying broken upon the hard floor. 

They wouldn’t be back any time soon, not after that harrowing experience, and certainly not with the permanent ethereal wounds he had left upon them. The four Erelim had assuredly been difficult; he was bleeding golden ichor from his chest and back, there was a cracked bone in one of his wings which would need splinting to heal properly, and his face and legs were littered with cuts from the razor-thin blades and claws the other angels had fashioned. 

Aziraphale’s wounds stung in the way only wounds made by holy weapons stung, which is to say just about the normal amount to an angel, but the few cuts he hadn't managed to deflect from Crowley's body were festering already. The sickly, sweet smell of rot reached him and nearly made him retch.

“Oh,” Aziraphale breathed, folding his wings and true form back into the ethereal plane with a wince, “My dear.” He knelt down, wobbling as his thigh burned from a millennia old wound. He pressed his fist into the muscle out of reflex before shaving the pain away. He gently wrapped Crowley in his arms and picked him up, making sure the demon’s head rested softly against his shoulder before moving through the flat.

Aziraphale carried Crowley to the large bed in the flat, resolutely ignoring how dismal and dark the walk through it was. It seemed foreboding, even more so than it normally did; as if the flat itself was waiting for something else to jump out of the shadows at him. Aziraphale shook his head to clear those sorts of thoughts away. 

Whatever had happened here to make it this way, he wouldn’t know until Crowley came to again. And for that to happen, he’d need to leech the holy energies from the wounds, which was more difficult than one might think. Luckily, they’d done this dance before. Fights with unhallowed and hallowed blades alike, in dangerous dances to keep up a façade as part of an even more perilous Arrangement.

They’d nicked one another, roughed each other up, and left each other bloody, more than once to “prove” they were getting into clashes with their Earthly adversaries. They split lips, bruised bodies, and broke bone; and when that wasn’t enough, they spilled blood on deadly weapons. All to protect one another, even as they drew exclamations of pain from carefully hidden, heavy hearts. 

However, it also meant that they knew how to care for each other, once their reports were given and they were free to do so. Crowley had developed a sort of wind-tunnel effect that sucked up any remnants of unholy fire and pain like a tornado sucked up brush fires. Aziraphale, on the other hand, had figured out how to soothe the holiness away by washing it clean. If holy water could be made under the right circumstances by boiling and distilling regular water [8] then with a bit of finicky practice it could also be made into unholy water.

* * *

[8] Holy water had the Hell boiled out of it with holy fire. Unholy water had the Heaven boiled out of it with Hellfire. Of course. Luckily, Aziraphale’s flesh, inhabited by an angelic soul, was not nearly as sensitive to unholy water as Crowley's own would be to its opposite. It stung a little; but ultimately felt like scalding water, no matter how cool or cold it was in actuality. A bit like washing dishes by hand and forgetting one could turn the water down halfway through.

* * *

As soon as he settled Crowley comfortably on the bed, Aziraphale conjured some pre-distilled unholy water in a wooden bowl and a soft rag onto the nightstand. Not wanting to irritate the wounds further by peeling off the ridiculous trousers the demon insisted on wearing, Aziraphale simply took hold of the fraying edges, where the denim and the skin beneath had suffered cruel gashes, and ripped. It was not as easy to tear off the damaged garment as Aziraphale had expected, but it was still no challenge for his supernatural strength. 

After surrounding Crowley's limp form with his softest pillows, Aziraphale settled himself at the foot of the bed with the rag and the bowl of water in hand. Meticulously he dipped the cloth into the stinging water, paying no mind to the way the skin on his fingers and palms flushed pink with the first signs of burns, and slowly debrided the holy infection from Crowley’s wounds. It was a long, arduous process that left Aziraphale’s hands feeling blistered and raw, though there was little sign of it, and there had been no lasting damage done. 

Aziraphale had never mentioned to Crowley that it hurt to care for him this way, nor would he ever. He had some suspicions that Crowley didn’t much enjoy pulling any demonic influence out of Aziraphale either, especially as air wasn’t his natural (or preferred) element. 

Slowly the red banner of infection subsided and Crowley's flesh was able to be miracled closed and healed. He woke disoriented and flailing, and flung himself headfirst from the bed. Aziraphale caught him by his miraculously intact shirt before he could crack his head on the unforgiving concrete floor.

“A-angel?” Crowley croaked, throat raw, muscles trembling delicately under his skin. “‘Ss’zat you?”

“Of course, my dear boy,” Aziraphale had to bite his tongue to keep from asking who else it might have been, when Crowley’s home had been invaded by other angels not too long ago. 

Crowley relaxed into Aziraphale’s hold for nearly a full second before jumping up, overcome by a bout of mania. He _needed_ to check every hidden crevice, in every room; armed with nothing more than a worried look and thousands of words jumbled together under his breath. He half-tripped over the discarded husks of the angels who had violated his home, left where they lay on his pitiless stone floor; but even that was not enough to give him pause. 

Aziraphale was used to Crowley's erratic behavior after a healing as one must be after so many thousands of years together, though he still couldn't help but worry. 

“Crowley!” He cried, wringing his hands as he followed after the demon in question. “Are you alright? They had _holy_ weapons!”

Crowley spun around suddenly on his heels, looking ready to berate Aziraphale ferociously, a snarl already on his lips... but one good look at Aziraphale took all the wind from his sails. “Doesn’t matter, Angel. Why’re you _covered_ in blood?” 

Ah, right. Aziraphale had forgotten that part.

“Crowley, they had you on the floor and were going to _kill_ you, what else was I supposed to do?!” Aziraphale threw his hands in the air. 

Crowley, it seemed, didn’t have anything to say to that, but the suspiciously wet sheen in his eyes and the slump of his shoulders gave him away. 

“Sssorry.” Aziraphale almost didn’t hear it, at first. Crowley _never_ said sorry, not so directly, and not in so many words.

“What for, dear fellow?” Aziraphale stepped forward, one of his hands outstretched to gently cup Crowley’s face. He was distantly aware that he must look like the Renaissance vision of a cherub, soft with divine love and hopeful innocence, so entirely unlike he had been hours before when _dear fellow_ was as much of a threat as the emergence of his wings had been. 

“S’ry I didn’ keep you safe.” Crowley slurred, still off-kilter from the blow he must have taken to the head not so long ago. Though he’d been technically healed, it felt like his occult nature was still rattling around in his skull, making it hard to articulate anything he was thinking.

Aziraphale’s face screwed up into something incomprehensible to Crowley, who wasn’t much great at figuring out all the ineffable intricacies of his angel in the first place, no matter how well he actually knew Aziraphale. 

“Crowley, _you_ were the one who was injured!” 

“Angel, _you’re_ the one bleeding!” 

Aziraphale huffed loudly at being snapped at and waved his hand. Between one heartbeat and the next, all the blood was gone and none of the wounds remained on his physical body. 

“That doesn’t change the fact you were _hurt_ , Aziraphale!” Crowley leaned forward, his nose scarcely a hair's breadth away from Aziraphale’s own, his teeth bared once again in fickle anger. 

“That doesn’t change the fact that a demon hurt you!” Crowley crowded closer and closer as he backed Aziraphale across the room with every rage-filled breath. “That everything I’ve done to keep them away from you was for _nothing_! I deserved it, Angel!”

Aziraphale stopped moving back; his lips drew down into a deep frown and his eyebrows furrowed. “Deserved _what_ , Crowley,” his voice was dangerously low, escaping in a rumble from deep in his chest even as his eyes turned murky and grey like storm clouds looming on the horizon. It wasn’t a question. It was a challenge.

“Being hurt!” Crowley shouted, throwing his hands in the air and still trembling beneath his skin with fear and fear-turned-anger. He wasn’t angry, he couldn’t be; Aziraphale had come for him and presumably saved him from being discorporated or worse. 

But fear was too big an emotion for a demon like Crowley, it demanded too much of his attention, and his relief already flustered him and took up all his Big Emotion Energy, so anger it was. He’d kick himself later for blowing up at Aziraphale, but for now it was all he could do not to start crying as imagined shadows lengthened in the dark corridor. They crept up his back like icy fingers, ready to pull him back down into the depths of Hell or, perhaps worse, haul him up into Heaven. 

He’d deserve it, especially when he was the reason his angel’s face had fallen like that; like tears were only seconds from leaving tracks across pale cheeks, like Aziraphale’s heart had dropped out of his chest and to settle in his stomach.

“Oh, my dear...” Aziraphale whispered. The world stilled between them, and an eternity passed when their eyes met. He pulled Crowley suddenly into a tight embrace; and it felt like Falling, and it felt like Forgiveness, and it felt like everything wonderful and terrible all at once. Crowley slumped against Aziraphale's solid chest, where he was pressed close and secure. He curled into Aziraphale's embrace and let himself be kept afloat, his head held above the water, his soul saved from drowning. 

“They said there were demons,” Crowley choked out, “Said they’d keep them away from you, ‘f I didn’t say anythin’ and ‘f I paid penance.” Aziraphale held Crowley closer, letting his warm tears wet the top of Crowley’s hair, but did not speak other than a repeating, soft refrain of “ _oh my dear, my darling, oh my dear boy_.”

A few moments passed, or maybe an eternity, until Aziraphale couldn’t bear to remain standing, to feel like there was anything that might keep him from wrapping himself around Crowley and protecting him like he’d tried to do for Aziraphale. 

So, he swept Crowley up with arms tucked under his knees and around his back. Folding his beloved up to hold against his chest while he walked back into the bedroom; where he carefully lowered himself onto the bed with his back to the headboard and Crowley curled in his lap. Aziraphale arranged the demon so that he lay cradled between his thighs with his back resting against Aziraphale’s chest. As soon as Aziraphale settled, Crowley curled up even more so he could tuck his face and hide his eyes in the crook of Aziraphale’s neck. 

“Breathe,” Aziraphale murmured, gently petting along Crowley’s side with a hand, the other wrapped gently around Crowley’s thin waist, feeling every stuttering breath as he tried to match each of Aziraphale’s inhales and exhales. The trembling soon stopped, and Crowley relaxed against the firm softness of his angel, who was all that was warm and light and good in Crowley’s world. 

“My dear,” Aziraphale started hesitantly.

“Mhmm?” Crowley hummed, halfway to sleep now that Aziraphale had come to his rescue. 

Half-asleep as he was, the realization that Aziraphale had never _needed_ to be saved by Crowley crept up on him. The knowledge that every "rescue" had been a choice Aziraphale made; to see Crowley, to let him be Good when he ought not to be, to let Crowley show Aziraphale that he'd walk through hell fire and across holy ground and over _holy water_ for him. 

“Why did you keep this from me?”

Crowley tensed a little at the question, burying his face further against Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Didn’ want them to hurt you. Said ‘s saw demons ‘round, Hastur and the like, would’a stopped ‘em from hurtin’ you ‘f I paid penance.” The more he spoke, the smaller he made himself, curling up impossibly small and tight for such a tall, lanky man-shaped creature. It would have been more in-character for a snake, which Crowley was as much as he was a man, even if he looked nothing at all like a snake presently. 

“Said I d’served it.” Crowley offered a vague shrug. He’d never confess that he felt he’d deserved it, too. 

“Darling, oh Crowley,” Aziraphale sighed and pulled Crowley away from him, only just enough to look him in the eyes, “They _lied_ to you, there were no demons.” Crowley closed his eyes and leaned his weight into Aziraphale at that.

“Of course.” 

Aziraphale frowned, “This is no censure, dear boy,” his words were heavy with hidden meanings, and all his veiled wants, and his shrouded love and devotion for the silly, daft demon in his hands. Screwing up all the courage he could muster, Aziraphale cupped Crowley’s face in both his palms and leaned forward to press a soft, chaste kiss to his lips.

“I don’t mean to berate you, but I wish you wouldn’t hurt yourself thinking to take care of me. Let me help take care of you too.” Aziraphale pressed more of the same, soft kisses over Crowley’s face as he spoke, cradling him with his legs and body and his hands. As if he were the most precious thing Aziraphale had ever beheld, as if he were some tabernacle of love and grace, cherishing him in all the ways that broke Crowley open so his tar-black soul could spill through the cracks.

Tears trailed down Crowley’s cheeks and into the crevices of Aziraphale’s fingers, and Aziraphale kissed those too. Crowley felt raw and loved and broken apart; and like the only thing holding him together in this shattered, glass-sharp corporation of his was the firm press of Aziraphale against him. So he leaned into it, pressed into the warm love radiating from his angel. Welcomed it into him, gasping and desperate for anything Aziraphale seemed suddenly willing to give him.

“Slow– slower, Crowley.” Aziraphale murmured, but didn’t pull away from him, not this time. Instead laid a languid, deep kiss on Crowley’s lips. 

“We’ve all the time in the world, my love, let’s make use of it.”

“Hngk.” Crowley agreed.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope I stayed true enough to your prompts and you like it!
> 
> [Come find me on Tumblr here!](https://d20owlbear.tumblr.com/)


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